Max Verstappen is convinced that Red Bull retained the pace to win Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix without the grid drop which stopped him starting on pole position.
Verstappen dominated in the wet as he posted a six-tenth advantage over the rest, but exceeding his allocation on power unit parts dropped him 10 spots on the grid.
But although McLaren claimed Verstappen was the favourite from 11th place, the Dutchman was unable to repeat his past comeback heroics at Spa-Francorchamps.
Verstappen displaced Esteban Ocon, Alex Albon and Fernando Alonso with ease in the opening stages and then also cleared Lando Norris’ McLaren with an undercut.
But Verstappen couldn’t make up more ground in the remaining stints as overtaking proved trickier than expected and he followed Charles Leclerc home in fifth place.
However, Verstappen, who was promoted to fourth as George Russell was disqualified, believes that he would’ve contested the win had he lined up in his true position.
Asked whether opting to use a less loaded rear wing would have boosted Red Bull’s prospects with passing cars, Verstappen said: “I don’t think so really.
“I mean, the balance of the car wasn’t too bad always in the first few laps, but, of course, I also ran a lot in traffic, which probably also didn’t help.
“But yeah, we were just not, you know, faster than the cars around us, and then you just get stuck in that DRS train. I think as a team we maximised the performance today.
“Naturally, you know, if you start P1 with the pace that we had, I think you’re fighting for the win, regardless.
“But starting P11, I knew that it was always going to be a damage limitation race. Of course, looking at the championship, it was still a positive day.
“I extended my lead, where it could have also easily been, you know, calculating losses. So from that side, of course, it’s a positive day.”
Verstappen denied that he could have executed the one-stop race that Russell managed, but he admitted that Red Bull was compromised without two new Hard sets.
“I think also naturally, we were on two Mediums and a Hard. I think today a Hard tyre would have helped,” he acknowledged.
“Of course, George won the race on a one-stop. But I don’t think we had the tyre wear or tyre life to do that anyway.
“So, yeah, also there are a few things to analyse.
“But as a team today, we did a good job. We definitely did the right thing with the strategy to try and be a bit aggressive initially.
“To try and get ahead of a few and made my race a little bit better. But then too many cars where we got stuck with.”
Verstappen managed to increase his championship lead as main rival Norris dropped three places with an error at the start which wrecked his chance to win the race.
The three-time champion was relieved that he avoided a dent in his sizeable advantage, though he reiterated his stance that Red Bull must strive to unlock more pace.
“I think he didn’t have the best first lap, I don’t know what happened there,” he noted regarding Norris’s race. “But yeah, for me that is of course what I look at, naturally.
“Of course, a lot of the other guys, they’ve done great races, but they’re quite far behind in the championship.
“And yeah, for me, it’s of course with the car that at the moment probably is not the quickest in the race.
“It’s about just limiting the damage and try to be as close as I can be every single time. And that’s what we have been doing lately.
“And of course, naturally, I would just hope that we can find a little bit more performance because it will make our lives a bit easier in the race.”
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